Google Now The Word’s Most Valuable Company, Beating Apple

Alphabet- Google’s parent company- has surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable company after its latest earnings report.

It is the first time that Alphabet has separated out the results of its Google business – which includes the search engine and YouTube – from its “Other Bets” business, which includes more experimental ventures such as self-driving cars and internet balloon programs.

The company made a profit of $4.9bn (£3.4bn) for the fourth quarter, an increase from $4.7bn a year ago.The announcement sent its share price up as much as 9% in after-hours trading.That means that Alphabet is now worth around $568bn, compared with Apple, which has a value of $535bn.

On an annual basis, Alphabet made $16.3bn but the figures show that the “Other Bets” business lost $3.6bn during the period, while Google’s operating income rose to $23.4bn, as online advertising increased.

“It looks like Google continues to execute on mobile [advertising],” said Neil Doshi managing director of research at Mizuho Securities.

“Two or three years ago mobile was a big head wind for Google. There were concerns that it [had]a negative impact on its desktop business, but as mobile takes over for more searches, mobile ads are becoming closer in value to the desktop ads.”

Analysis: Dave Lee, BBC technology reporter

If last week Apple was punished for not sharing enough big ideas for the future, Alphabet is being rewarded for spending big on its many technology gambles.

The company was under a lot of pressure to be more transparent over how much cash it was splashing on things like driverless cars, internet-enabled helium balloons and Google Glass.

Turns out it was a lot – $3.6bn last year. But with the Google side of Alphabet doing so very well, it doesn’t really matter. As long as things stay like that, Alphabet will continue to be an attractive proposition for investors.

The big gain for the company was advertising. All important paid-for clicks – where advertisers pay per person who clicks on the ad – were up 31% across the entire internet, and 40% on Google-owned sites.

The neon Google sign in the foyer of Google’s new Canadian engineering headquarters in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario January 14, 2016. REUTERS/Peter Powergoogle

Alphabet’s claiming of the most valuable company title has been seen by some as a passing of the technology baton.

Apple became the United States’ most valuable company in 2010, when it dislodged Microsoft. Microsoft in turn overtook IBM two decades earlier.

@tatenda While I agree with you regarding the price premium on Apple products, their stock is remarkably “cheap” for a company with that kind of revenue and stable consumer base. That’s not even accounting for the innovation potential that Apple may hold.

The problem with Apple is that they are dangerously dependent on a single product. Look at Nokia Sony HTC etc. To see that this is a dangerous position. Google also depends very much on search but that is much safer.
On the other hand I don’t believe in apples innovation potential but I believe in the ecosystem. The iPhone6 has proven that Apple doesn’t need innovation to double it’s share price, it just needs to make everything right and fix outstanding issues like their inflexible resolution and therefore tiny screens.

I think it’s unfair to normal companies that have to make money to survive that they have to compete with the googles of the world who can burn Billions trying to Play in areas they have no competency whatsoever. Yeah it’s nice for a robotic or IT company that it can be bought out by Google for hundreds of millions but I wonder if it actually kills our prospects of getting something cool actually to market. Small companies that try to make it big seem to be more focused and it’s not like googles moonshots have rocked the world until now.

The problem with Google is they are 90% an advertising company but no one sees a problem with that… It’s baffling. There’s a finite amount of ads they can sell to people–same with Apple selling phones. At least Apple has other product categories. What else does Google have? Mostly free stuff supported by ads.

Google focuses on improving the ways people connect with information. It provides variety of services and tools for advertisers of all sizes, from simple text ads to display and mobile advertising and to publishers, whether small or large. The company primarily focuses on the areas which include search, advertising, operating systems, platforms, enterprise and hardware products. The search area consists of a vast index of websites and other online content which is made available through its search engine to anyone with an Internet connection. So we can not say thats a problem rather its their prime focus